Daily Ladder-age #36: Oracle expand, theorizin'

So. Today was my last day of school, free for summer! AW YEAH!!! It feels to unsatisfying now that it's over! I don't know guys, school felt like a drag this year! But anyways, I'm free at last! <3 time to Starcraft.

Today's daily will be theory crafting again. Today's theory crafting by me is going to be an oracle expand, since I've been looking to getting myself a better build for PvZ (or at least one that suits my style better).

My basic idea behind why to try an oracle expand is 2 fold. 1st; I believe it will allow me to get up my 3rd safer, at least if I refine my build further. 2nd; With proper scouting, I will have enough stargates earlier to get up phoenixes to fend off mutalisks. Oracles are far more mobile than voidrays (what I usually get in PvZ) so they can make for much better scouting, even potential harass.

On my 1st reason. The oracle, as you all know, either is extremely fucking amazing harassment, melting down a mineral line in a few seconds, or worthless due to static defense. Most people don't seem to consider an oracle for defensive uses. Their bonus VS light will make them amazing deterrent against zerglings, and if they go extremely hydralisk-heavy, a good number of oracles can even deal with those quite handily. AMAZING DPS against light. If they go roach heavy, I simply would need to start pumping out voidrays instead... and then those roaches will become a huge waste of money.

On my 2nd reason. Pretty straight forward, mutalisks suck. For my previous build, I was getting a ton of voidrays blindly, and often without real scouting info. The lack of scouting just comes from my general lack of scouting, but it's also that my voidrays aren't mobile enough to afford to scout either. Fighting off mutalisks is just a general thing that I personally don't get, so this part is more for me than for a general lack of mutalisk-fighting abilities in PvZ.

Now, for the strategy to work as I envision, two expansions must be taken behind the first couple of oracles. The oracles will melt off zergling faces if they come to attack it, and later on cannons will also be added on. The only problem that I foresee is that the zerg may react strangely after scouting my lack of expansion and very, very fast stargate. If he's good enough maybe he'll just proceed as usual... 1base toss doesn't work anyways. Heck, maybe he'll preemptively make units and delay his own economy.

No, this isn't the kind of groping that all you loner wanna be doing. I tried making up a build on the fly against some AIs, and it actually turned out not half bad. Comparing them against my PvZ replay that I used in yesterday's daily, my economy was pretty similar. I take my 3rd base WAY faster in my improvised build, and I actually have more units as well up to a certain point. I seem to be behind on resources collected total (don't get how that works) but thanks to my faster 3rd my gas income is where I like it to be.

Here are 2 of the games that I tried out against AI players. Both trials have the 3rd base by about 7:40. The only thing that I'm still unsure of is whether or not I should transfer workers from my main to distribute evenly to the other bases... maybe I'm just OCD or something but that feels like it could work too. Less thought put into properly setting rally points.

In both of those 2 replays I get a ton of oracles out, but that's just because it's against AI. After 3~5 oracles I think that the rest of the units created will be specifically tailored to the game as it's turning out. If they go for swarmhosts or mass roaches, get voidrays. If they go hydralisk/ling heavy, oracles. If they go mutalisks, get phoenixes. I think that the earlier boost in gas income helps with making more stuff out of the stargates! More air units = more tears.

This is still goign to be a works in progress for a while but I think that i made fair headway already. The only thing that's nagging me is figuring out how fast a zerg could flood me with lings if he decides to just go kill me. While oracles can melt lings fast, if they keep running away and coming back, or if they just are too damn numerous, my oracles will run out of energy. Fairly risky in that sense, but the tradeoff of the defendability (that's a word shut up) is pretty good. If you've tried something like this out, or have general suggestions on such a build, hit me up yo! It'll give me a bump and it'll help me along my way making the build!